Battery

I found time last night to finish basing my 15mm ACW Confederate artillery. 6 guns/stands should be all I'll ever need at the scale I intend to play seeing as the  2 rules sets my opponent and I intend to play (Regimental Fire and Fury & Longstreet) typically limit a battery to 3 bases and where differing cannon-types are introduced, I’ll just print a label to indicate if the gun is a Parrot, 6 or 12-pounder, etc and affix to the back of their bases for gameplay identification purposes.

1st three guns. Had to have at least one crewman with a red shirt. I saw many paintings that I used as reference online where CSA Artillery crew were loading in red shirts. My Star Trek sensibilities do not think those fellows will go very far though....

These sculpts are by Blue Moon who do a rather good and extensive range for 15mm ACW, were affordable  and were fun to paint to boot. I tried to research Confederate Artillery uniforms online and went with a rather generic scheme as it seemed the simplest to paint over a full unit. Once again, not everyone got a uniform, so civvie clothing features though not as frequently as within my infantry regiments’ sculpts.

2nd three guns. The crew pack had a bunch of people pointing. I don't really think they are a necessary pose outside of officers, being rather obvious otherwise. Regardless, the bases I've arranged look fun enough and I especially like the detail on the right hand gun here of the sergeant's chevrons on the sleeve of his pointing arm.

I based these with only 2 crew members for two reasons:

         a.   The guns come six to a pack. The crew twelve. Do the math. J

         b.  There’s only enough room on these 1.5’x1” bases for two crew!

Regardless I really like how they came out. The bases are a little thicker than my already previewed Cavalry and Generals due to them being kindly donated, but that’s just fine as a few extra millimeters height is hardly an advantage! (And I get to call these Gun Batteries done!)

This is my favourite base of the six. The Officer has his sword drawn and a rather splendid full beard and seems to be pleading with the other crewman to reload the damned cannon already. The crewman in contrast is toting a bucket and I fear, might be a little slow witted.

I also finished up the Snow Leopard. Out of the blue, I got sick of looking at the cat, so after softening the blackspots a little with some dark greys and sprucing up the throat and underbelly with a slight white dry-brush, I did the basing and called it a day. This feline will do for rpg game purposes and in the future, when I make a plan to paint a plain brown mountain lion, I'm sticking to it!

Tomorrow Densmol and I are going to get a game of Flames of War in for Cameron's D-Day online campaign, so expect an AAR posted up with pictures (Promise) by the weekend.

The [kind-of] Big Guns

Been fighting a little painting-burnout of late, but trying to get through some of my backlog regardless. Easiest option for this were my 25-pounder Artillery who's most difficult aspects to paint are their resin bases! (Which by-the-by actually look pretty cool.)

So far I've gotten the Guns and crew, Observer and a Command team done. Only for 4 of the guns though, I'm not about to torture myself trying to paint up 8 at a time. Just have the Observer's Universal Carrier transport and the 2nd Command team to paint and it'll be done. (Won't bother to do a post once I've done them though as it's just more of the same really.)

For those interested, 25-pounder artillery are sorrowfully stat'd in Flames of War when compared to their historical precedence. These guns were used well beyond WW2 by Commonwealth forces due to just how good they were, yet the powers that be at Battlefront (Creators of the game.) made them sub-par compared to just about any other same-sized artillery piece..... These things leveled Caen for cripes sake!

In game I use these guns to drop smoke bombardments and pin pesky dug in infantry (Or enemy artillery to stop them shooting back) platoons prior to an assault. Their bombardments have a 5+ firepower (Should be an obvious 4+....) which really lets them down though as mine rarely kill anything.

On to the pics.

Next up on the painting table are another Armoured Car platoon from the Manitoba Dragoons - a Daimler Dingo and 2 lovely Staghound I's.  I couldn't help myself - I love Armoured Cars... Aside from some Pioneers and some 5.5" Medium Artillery, I believe I am done purchasing for my WW2 Commonwealth. (Though far from painting - I still have 2x 17pdr guns, 4x Mid War 6pdr Portee trucks, 2x Mid War Motor Infantry platoons, my Guards Armoured Recce company and a bunch of other stuff....)